Home

LATEST POSTS

Bird conservation is a subject that has a long history in the United States, and this year we have reached an important milestone: The hundred year anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Because of this law, you may want to stop adding to your feather collection. It might be illegal!

It's finally here... the third year of the Bruce Museum's summer film series, Science on the Silver Screen! This year's films are: Godzilla (2014), San Andreas, and Twister. For each of these films, we've invited an expert in a related scientific field to introduce the film and watch with you. Afterward, the expert will answer any questions you might have about the science (or lack thereof) shown in the movie.

While honey bees are charismatic, helpful, and interesting, they take a back seat in our new exhibit at the Bruce Museum, Wild Bees: Photographs by Paula Sharp and Ross Eatman. This exhibit explores the small scale world that native bees inhabit and showcases their beauty and diversity in form and lifestyle. These wild bee species are facing many challenges as the world changes around them, but there are steps we can take to make things a little better for our buzzing allies.

To celebrate previous April Fool’s Days, we’ve delved into various scientific conspiracy theories on our Bruce science blog. This year we’re doing something similar, but narrowing our focus. Instead of plucking theories from all across the spectrum, this time we’re looking at variations on a particular subject: Aliens!

Our understanding of what’s going on in the minds of animals has come a long way. Where once science held that animals were little more than instinctive automatons, now we understand that cats miss us when we’re gone, crows can remember human faces and hold grudges, and a number of species even have a rudimentary sense of self. One trait that has been investigated in animals recently is empathy.

When cosmonauts went into space they carried a survival kit that contained everything they might need should they land in the wilderness and need to fend for themselves for a few days. One of the items in this survival kit was the TP-82 space gun, a unique weapon like none other.

Dr. Olesya Turkina's lecture delved into the art, science, and ideology that surrounded the dogs that were the pioneers of the Soviet space program. She asks the question, would you send your dog into space?

Dr. Siddiqi is a professor in the Department of History at Fordham University in New York. He studies both the history of science and modern Russia, and the history of the Soviet Space program is the combination of both these disciplines. The many books he has written on the subject were instrumental in the curation of Hot Art in a Cold War, and his talk at the Bruce touched upon many of those subjects.